Daily Box Office Analysis
By David Mumpower
August 14, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
2012 has been kind to Jeremy Renner. On New Year’s Day, the rising actor co-starred in the number one film in the land, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. That title wound up earning $209.4 million domestically and almost $700 million worldwide. The $209 million alone represented by far the biggest hit of Renner’s career over The Town’s global earnings of $156.8 million. Note: Renner also had a role in 2003’s SWAT, which grossed $207.2 million worldwide, but he was not the draw there.
The fourth Mission Impossible title was number one for eight days in January although technically none of the weekends. His next release was called The Avengers. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Far and away the number one movie of 2012, The Avengers spent three weekends in first place. It was the top North American film for 21 consecutive days. We are 227 days into 2012. Jeremy Renner has already starred in three number one films. These titles have led the box office for 33 days and four, arguably five weekends.
Jeremy Renner is officially a superstar.
Alas, The Bourne Legacy will be his least popular movie of the year. After a weekend estimate of $40 million, the posting of actuals downgraded Bourne 4 to $38,142,825. Its Monday revenue of $3,857,355 brings it domestic total up to $42,000,180. Here are the metrics that matter. The movie declined 33% from Saturday to Sunday, which quickly was blamed on the Olympics. Well, there were no Olympics yesterday (*sigh*), yet the movie fell 60% from Sunday.
How alarming is this? Let me use another recent example to make the point. Magic Mike opened to a similar $39.1 million. It fell 26% from Saturday to Sunday and then 40% from Sunday to Monday. Yes, Magic Mike, a weekend movie if ever there were one, demonstrated better holdover appeal during its first four days. While Magic Mike’s first set of weekdays included the July 4th holiday and thereby inflated box office a bit, this trend is still alarming.
The Bourne Legacy has dropped 73% from Saturday to Monday. These are tell-tale signs of frontloading. To wit, Total Recall is wildly frontloaded thus far. Its Saturday to Monday drop was “only” 68%. Its Saturday-Sunday decline was 24% and its Sunday-Monday decline was 58%. All these metrics indicate that The Bourne Legacy is losing steam at a faster rate than a movie that fell 69% last weekend. I do not expect this trend to continue, but this is an issue we definitely need to track. At this point, The Bourne Legacy is not a mortal lock to earn $100 million. Even if it does, $125 million appears to be a best case scenario thus far.
The other new release, The Campaign, finished in second place with $3,141,082. This is a noteworthy performance given the above. If The Bourne Legacy does flame out, something this Bourne fan hopes does not happen, The Campaign could feasibly become the number one film in North America by Thursday. A lot depends on what happens tomorrow. For the moment, the Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis frenemy comedy has earned $29,729,542.
In case you are wondering about its metrics, its Saturday-Sunday decline was 27% while its Sunday-Monday depreciation was 54%. So, it has lost 67% of its audience since Saturday as well. Sometimes I feel like the last triumphant movie release was The Avengers. Most of the noteworthy summer films fall squarely in the good but not great category with the rest entering the total disaster range.
In case you are wondering whether The Dark Knight Rises may yet return to first place, the answer is probably not. The third place entrant yesterday earned $2,344,003. It should be in the $1.8 million range by Thursday. The Bourne Legacy would have to lose over 50% of its revenue over the next three days; Total Recall did 50% of the same situation. And even if The Bourne Legacy does drop that much, The Campaign would have to lose 42% of its audience over the next three days as well.
Instead, what we are anticipating with The Dark Knight Rises is its next milestone. With current box office of $391,932,219 after 25 days in theaters, the latest Batman movie should cross $400 million on its 29th day in theaters. That would be Friday. In the process, The Dark Knight Rises will become the fourth fastest movie to $400 million. The Dark Knight required only 18 days in achieving the same milestone.
I do not expect The Dark Knight Rises to reach $450 million based upon its current trajectory. The only caveat to this is that the movie has demonstrated slightly more life than anticipated based on its first 14 days of revenue. If The Olympics had a moderate impact in addition to the Aurora tragedy, it could hold on a bit longer than normal for a film performing at this scale.
I previously mentioned the model of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, a title I did not feel was a perfect fit for various reasons. The Dark Knight Rises has fallen behind the pace of that film, earning only 92% of its fourth weekend revenue of $20.6 million. Batman 7’s day 25 total is only 90% of Dead Man’s Chest’s $2,603,407. Given that the Johnny Depp movie earned roughly $62 million after day 25 and that movies die more quickly now than they did in 2006, another $50 million is about the best I foresee The Dark Knight Rises earning during the rest of its domestic run. That would be final box office in the $440 million range, which would be enough for the seventh best domestic earner of all time. Ninth best and a total in the $425 million range is the absolute worst case scenario now and I find that projection too pessimistic.
Combined revenue for the top ten yesterday was $14.9 million. This is a modest increase of 5.6% from Thursday’s gruesome $14.1 million. You can read between the lines and anticipate what the rest of the box office week will entail. Also, I cannot speak for the other parts of the country, but school is back in session here. So the summer box office money train has come to a full stop.